


Films About Ghosts

by bellatemple



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drama, Dreams, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 00:31:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellatemple/pseuds/bellatemple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Winchester mind can be an incredibly dangerous place. Dean has always known that, of course, but he didn't know how bad it could be until he was neck deep in a subconscious wilderness, surrounded on all sides by ghosts of enemies and friends alike, each with their own agenda. All Dean wants to do is find Sam -- the real Sam -- and get out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Films About Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Violence, bondage, torture, one instance of nonconsensual sexual contact (kissing), angst

  


  


It was like a road out of an old movie, the trees curving up and over, blocking out the sky. Like someone was trying to hide the wires and the other actors waiting just out of shot. The headlights barely lit more than a single car-length, just scraping the woods that lined the verge. I probably could have tweaked them, squeezed out a little more juice, but we didn't have the time and this wasn't the place. We were the only car on the road, at least, near as I could tell. I hadn't seen any headlights or taillights, or even road signs to break up the long, monotonous stretch of blacktop. Not even so much as a mailbox in what had to be miles. Might've been nice to know that the whole of everything hadn't been broken down and reduced to a twenty foot stretch of asphalt and a few low hanging branches.

Hell, if a deer jumped in front of us, we were screwed. I was an awesome driver, but even I couldn't react that fast. It wouldn't be a deer, though. Not on this road. Not in this darkness. Winchesters were never that lucky.

Nights on the road like this were meant to be easy, just me and Sam and the road, the wheels of the car carving out our own little piece of the universe. I wanted to relax into it. Sam slept next to me, his head tilted against the corner where the seat gave way to the door, all the muscles in his face relaxed the way they used to, before -- hell, I wasn't even sure when "before" might have existed. A long time ago. Too long.

I'd miss that, but I couldn't remember ever feeling it, myself.

My shoulders twitched, the muscles in my back pulling tighter and tighter the longer I drove. I had to work to keep my fingers from clenching too hard on the wheel. It wasn't just the claustrophobia of the tiny, unfamiliar car with its crappy headlights. There was something following us. Not even following, just _behind_ , lurking just past the line of the seat. The weight of it pressed down on my lungs, set the nape of my neck on fire. I twisted my head, nearly swerving right off the road trying to find whatever it was, but I couldn't see anything there.

The feeling wouldn't go away. I clenched my teeth, shooting glances at Sam, each time expecting to see something staring back, crouching in the seat well or just glaring through the window. A djinn, maybe, or a demon. Or something older. Darker. With enormous teeth and thick, black blood.

Compared to the leviathans, demons were almost cuddly.

Between them and Lucifer, Sam and I had our hands full. That was why I was here, after all. Sam had already had to defeat Lucifer on his own, once. I wasn't about to make him do it again.

The few open spaces in the car were _too_ open now, vulnerable spots waiting to be filled by anything able to slip through the cracks. I'd been hunting too long to ignore it, and my fingers itched for the feel of a weapon. This time I pulled over, twisting around to glare into the backseat, but all I could see was the same old worn leather, that stretch of black that when we were little seemed to go on forever.

Sam stirred, mumbled "are we there yet?" like he was fucking five years old before he managed to pull himself together. "Dean? Hey." He touched my shoulder and I managed not to flinch. "What’s up?"

We'd agreed on no more "Are you okay?"s. That "Are you okay?" was the stupidest question we could ask each other. So Sam asked "What’s up?" instead.

I turned back around, flopping into my seat, hands clenching on the wheel so hard I worried I was going to break it. "Nothing."

"Nothing," was the new "I’m fine." The only thing that changed about our conversations were the words.

I restarted the car and pulled carefully back onto the road. It was fucking dark out, and I wasn't about to get into a wreck doing something stupid. The feeling of being watched had dissipated. I wasn't dumb enough to think it was gone for good. 

Sam had gone quiet again in the passenger seat, though a quick glance showed he hadn't gone back to sleep. He slouched down, his long limbs sprawled as far as they could go into the seat well, and he still looked like he had his knees wedged up under his chin. 

"You couldn't have landed us a bigger ride?" I asked.

"All the cars are too small," he muttered, then stretched up and back, reaching into the backseat. I nearly swore, half-expecting him to pull back a bloody stump instead of his own hand, but he sat back down with a flashlight and a book, none the worse for wear.

"So, what?" I asked. "You not talking to me or something?"

Sam snorted and slouched even deeper into his seat, propping the flashlight on his shoulder so he could hold the book up in front of his face. I looked over, managing to make out a balding man on the cover wearing thick, round glasses. "Fuck, is that Freud?"

Another grunt, another slouch. It looked like the seat was trying to eat Sam. 

My scalp prickled, and I regretted the image. 

"Look," I said. "Can we just -- can we skip to the part where you call me an idiot for whatever I did and then we go back to doing our normal thing?"

Sam lowered the book an inch and peered over it at me. "Skip what?"

"The leaving in a huff thing."

The book came back up. "I'm not going to leave."

"Bull." I wanted to snatch the book out of his hands, but couldn't bring myself to take either hand off the wheel. "You always leave."

Sam didn't try to deny it. "I always come back."

"So far." I licked my lips and drummed my fingers on the wheel for a few moments, peering out into the darkness past the windshield, looking for a sign, a landmark, anything but trees and yellow lines. "Where the fuck are we going, anyway?" I asked, not so much because I needed an answer as to hear myself talk. When Sam didn't answer, I looked over. "Hey. Give me a break, here. It's not like I know where I'm going."

The book lowered again. "And I do?"

"Well yeah, we're in _your_ \--" I cut out when I glanced over again. The passenger seat was empty. The sense of something lurking had vanished, too. "Sam?"

Like an idiot, I twisted to check the backseat again, like I could have missed him climbing his way past me. It was like a prairie back there, a vast expanse of open nothingness. 

"See?" I said to the empty car. "I fucking told you." After some debate, I pulled the car into a tight u-turn, letting the tires scrabble on the verge. The way back looked exactly like the way forward, down to the last leaf. "Here we go again."

*

It would've helped if I'd had the least goddamn clue where I was going. That was Sam's job, though, and he was total crap about it. When he wasn't hiding or bitching, he was gone completely. It shouldn't have surprised me. I knew I couldn't count on him, not in here, where everything got all jumbled up, where all the memories and issues and fears hung out together, getting ideas and breeding new issues and fears. Counting on Sam was second nature, though, even when half the time I couldn't be sure if he was talking to me or his imaginary friend the Devil. It was going to be a hard habit to break.

Besides, it wasn't like I had anyone else around to count on.

That was why I was here, though. It was why I was driving this car with its bad headlights and its infinite backseat through a forest that only existed in twenty-foot stretches at a time.

I wanted my brother to stop going away.

I swallowed and sucked on my teeth. There was an odd taste lingering in the back of my throat, like bitter, muddy ass-tea. My fingers itched for the feel of a bottle or a flask, and I reached into my jacket, but there was nothing there. I stretched out my arm, shooting a quick glance towards the back seat. I'd have a bottle of something in my bag. I always had a bottle of something in my bag.

I still wasn't sure I'd get my hand back in once piece if I tried reaching for it, though.

Something flashed by the side of the road on my left, catching the headlights just long enough to draw my attention. I looked, but whatever it was must have gone past already.

"Just some animal," I told myself, though I knew it wasn't.

I kept the car steady, straddling the dashed yellow and tried again to relax. The road didn't even curve, just spooled by, smoother than any road through nowhere had a right to be. I got the feeling I wasn't moving at all, just spinning my wheels on some kind of road-shaped treadmill, killing time while Sam did whatever it was he did when I wasn't looking right at him. 

Another flicker to my left, and then a soft thunk on the roof over the backseat. It felt like the air in the car had been electrified. I wondered what I'd find if I switched on the EMF meter, but it was back in my bag, along with my whiskey. 

"Fuck off," I told whatever it was. "I'm not in the fucking mood."

The flicker came on the right, this time, and for just a moment I saw someone crouching down just past the reach of the headlights, his head bowed. He looked up and snarled as I passed, and I couldn't hold back a shudder. The light had caught Gordon Walker just long enough to show his bloodshot eyes and his wicked, jutting fangs.

Those teeth were the creepiest things I'd ever seen, right up until the moment I first really saw a leviathan.

Gordon vanished again into the dark in the rearview mirror. That was the thing with roads, after all. You were always leaving something behind.

*

I couldn't tell you how long I had to backtrack. The clock in the dash had stopped God knew how long ago, stuck at 7:30, and I couldn't make out the moon or stars through the branches of the trees. Even the gas gauge was only loosely based on reality, wavering up and down like a drunk no matter how many dashed lines passed under the tires. I spun the dial on the radio a few times, but none of it was any good without Sam sitting next to me. The wail of the guitar always turned into the wail of souls through the crunch of static. It gave me something to do, though. Something to focus on other than the empty seat next to me, the endless road in front, and the giant steaming pile of crap that was always behind me.

 _\-- Caucasian male,_ the radio hissed. _Completely unresponsive._

_Vitals?_

_Steady._

A hand, too small to be Sam's, slipped out and switched the radio off. I glanced over and bit back a groan. Amy sat bolt upright in the passenger seat, staring out the windshield.

"Great." I smirked, turning back to the road myself. "You're not really the company I was hoping for."

"I'm not exactly thrilled to see you, either."

I wanted to ask what she was doing here, but the words slipped away from my tongue. There was a more important question anyway. "Where's Sam?"

"Why did you kill me?"

I glanced over. She hadn't moved. "I asked you first."

Her head turned, the movement stiff and somehow unnatural. "Why did you kill me?" she asked again.

"You already know the answer to that."

She turned her head back to look out the windshield. "There you go, then."

"Fuck you." I twisted my hand on the wheel, feeling its ridges slip between my fingers. "Sam's not running because I killed you."

"I was his first kiss, you know that?"

Shit.

"Who was your first kiss, Dean? Do you even remember?"

I didn't. I knew I should, but her face, her name, they were lost in the sea of all the others. "We're not here to talk about me."

"Why are you here?"

"I'm looking for Sam. Now, you going to help me? Or are you just here to creep my shit out?"

She didn't answer. When I looked over, the passenger seat was empty again.

*

It wasn't too long after that that the flames started to wick up around the seat wells. I grit my teeth. I wasn't surprised, not really. I was never surprised by fire any more. Fire was just a fact of my life, right up there with booze and motels and the never-ending road. The heat scoured off my leg hair and toasted my jeans, but I kept my foot pressed into the accelerator, flicking glance after glance at the passenger seat. This was a good sign, I told myself. I had to be getting close.

The flames climbed up the seat, devouring the leather and clinging to my skin. They slashed across my chest like a seat belt and sent fingers up through my hair. The pain of it was so familiar I nearly sobbed, but I kept my hands clenched on the wheel, my eyes glued to the road -- what little I could make out of it through the growing smoke. When it got to be too much, I started to scream, a breathless, gasping, useless noise, little more than an exhale through heat-ravaged vocal cords. But I kept driving. I'd gotten really good at just working through the pain. The pain was even more constant than the fire.

Alastair landing on the hood of the car fucked my shit up, though. I wasn't expecting that.

His white eyes flashed like teeth and as he reached for me through the windshield, I discovered I wasn't too far gone for a proper scream, after all.

*

I finished screaming about when his fingers swiped through the flames across my chest. Screams were okay. Sometimes I had to scream. The trick was to get it over with and get on with things.

Things in this case being getting Alastair the fuck off the car. 

I wrenched the wheel around, sending the car into a spin. If I'd been in the Impala, it would have been as easy as breathing -- easier, even, breathing wasn't always as simple as it was cracked up to be -- but the piece of crap didn't respond the same way, didn't inhabit its own frame the way the Impala did. 

It wasn't an extension of the rest of me.

As it was, I had to wrap both hands around the wheel, lean hard into the spin, and take my eyes off the grinning fiend on the hood to check the back end and make sure it wasn't about to land itself in a tree. The car spun fast and hard, its small frame drawing itself in and up like a figure skater. Alastair fought to keep his grip, dragging himself forward until his teeth were the only things I could see, but even he couldn't hold on against the damned whirligig the car had turned into. His eyes went wide as he flew off, his mouth opening in a tight little "O", and I almost laughed. But only almost.

The car settled again once he'd vanished past the trees, and as I sat there, gasping for breath, trying to reign in the dizziness, I reached out a hand to pat the dashboard. "Thanks." Just because it wasn't my baby didn't mean it hadn't done me a huge favor.

The flames were gone, blown out by the spin -- or more likely just _gone_ , switched off like burners on a gas stove -- but the pain still lingered, a tingle across my legs and chest. I stumbled out of the car, coughing and panting as I scanned the trees that wrapped around on all sides. The road went no further from this perspective than when I was in the car, stretching out only twenty feet or so on either side before vanishing into the darkness. 

"Dammit, Sam!" I called, turning in place and staring up into the branches overhead. "What the fuck, man?"

A wicked laugh echoed across the small asphalt clearing as though the trees were stone instead of wood. I spun again, looking for the source and wondering if it was the same thing that had lurked in the car, but all I could see were the trees and the road and the car and Sam, standing silhouetted in the headlights, his head bowed forward so his hair dangled down over his face. I startled back, my hands coming up in front of me defensively, and I redirected them to my head to run them through my hair, hoping he didn't notice the momentary freak out.

"Cousin It," I said. "So nice of you to join us again."

Sam sighed. Or maybe the trees did. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his jeans, which were as dark and drenched as the rest of him. I wondered what he'd been swimming in. 

"Look man," I said, throwing words into the silence that followed his sigh and hoping they'd stick. "You've gotta help me out here, okay? It's not like I've got a road map or anything."

Sam turned his head away, the ends of his hair swaying without revealing any of his face.

"Yeah. This _Ring_ look of yours?" I stepped forward, reaching out a hand to brush that hair off his face. "Not your best. Now come on, let's --"

Sam's head snapped back around just before my hand reached him, and the image suddenly hit me of Meg-in-Sam snarling, eyes black in the steam of the holy water bath she was receiving. 

That wasn't right, though. This Sam's eyes were white, not black.

  


I hissed, snatching my hand away and backing up. Sam reached up to push his own hair back, half-sneering, half-smiling.

"I was down there a long time, Dean."

"No." My hand came up, shaking, torn between reaching out to him and warning him back. "Not that long."

"Longer than you were." Sam tilted his head. "How long did it take you to break again?" His smile reached full grin now, as something too thick to be water started to drip off his hair, his shirt, his fingers. "I was there more than _four times_ that long."

"This isn't --"

"You're right about one thing, though." Sam tilted his head cheerfully. "They didn't break me. Thanks to Azazel, they never had to."

" _No._ " I backed up this time, trying to keep my feet out of the rapidly spreading pool splashing out from where Sam stood. It curled up into waves at the edges.

" _Where do bad folks go when they die?_ " Sam crooned. He lifted his hand and snapped his fingers. I half expected the car to rise up where it stood behind him and change shape like a Transformer -- Sam had been fascinated with those as a kid -- but instead he just threw me back, sending me through the air like any other demon or monster would. I crashed down against the roots of one of the trees, and they leaped up before I could move, wrapping over my wrists, my ankles, my neck, holding me immobile. Sam strode out across the pool flowing down from his hair, his bare feet barely making a ripple on its surface, though it churned against the cracks and potholes in the street. He stopped at the edge of the pool, where it brushed against the bank of the verge not far from my feet. 

"Don't look so surprised, Dean." He leaned forward, looming over where I lay prone as more and more roots erupted from the dirt, wrapping in layers now across my body, dragging downward as though the forest were trying to eat me alive. "We both knew it'd come to this eventually."

I opened my mouth -- to yell, to object, hell, maybe just to beg -- only to gag when one of the roots made its way past my teeth, coating my tongue with the taste of dirt and dust and blood. It widened as it grew, forcing my mouth wide and my head back, thrusting its way down my throat. 

"I've got a treat for you," Sam said, and when he smiled this time, I could see the other Sams, the Sams he used to be, reflected in the expression, save for those cold, blank white eyes. "See you on the flip side."

The roots looped over my nose, cutting off my air. The dirt roiled like a living thing, piling up over my cheeks and into my ears, muffling the sound of Sam's laugh. I remembered this, though last time I'd been going the other way, clawing my way up instead of being dragged under. The dirt pressed cold against my skin, squeezing tighter and tighter, and the last thing I saw before it swamped up over my eyes was a second shadow emerging in the light of the headlights, looming up behind Sam.

*

I expected to open my eyes to Hell, or maybe that damned pine box I thought I'd escaped so many years ago. I thought maybe, _maybe_ I'd luck out, and I'd open them to some crappy, stained plaster ceiling in some crappy, run down motel room.

Instead, I opened them to feathers.

They were as dark and damp as Sam's hair had been, stuck together into tight clumps, but they were everywhere, wrapped around me like a cocoon. I lay in a half-fetal position, floating on nothing at all.

I felt . . . safe.

It wasn't a familiar feeling. 

I took I don't know how long, just curled there, trying to think past _hiseyeswerewhitehiseyeswherewhite_ and _nononotburiednotagain_ and getting stuck over and over, the terror still lodged deep in my chest.

_"What's up?"_

_"Nothing."_

I heaved in a breath, and when I got more than halfway through the inhale without falling apart, I tried it again. When my heart slowly settled and my muscles uncramped, I reached out, running my fingers over the feathers and then slipping them _through_. The feathers parted like a curtain, and a figure stared in at me. His eyes were so vibrantly blue against the darkness that it hurt to look at them, but I couldn't bring myself to look away.

"This isn't right, Dean," Castiel said. "Stop it."

And the feathers dropped, flowing away and vanishing into the liquid darkness as I broke the surface and sucked in a hard, painful gasp.

*

  


My throat tried to lock down and I gagged, spinning in the water, searching until I'd filled my lungs enough to shout.

"Cas!"

He was nowhere in sight.

"This isn't funny! Castiel!"

Someone -- not Cas -- yelled back. I turned in the water again, finally clearing my eyes and my head enough to take in my surroundings.

The lake looked familiar, though I couldn't quite place it. It made sense -- other than the years he'd been at Stanford, Sam and I had gone most places together. I floated a good ways from the tree-lined shore, not far from an anchored wooden raft, weather-beaten and slick. A trio of boys stood on it, facing away from me, wearing nothing but brightly colored swimsuits. As I watched, two of them egged the third forward, daring him in that excited, malicious way that children had, equal parts innocence and sadism. The third boy stepped to the very edge of the raft, his toes hanging off over the water.

"Just swim down the chain and grab something off the bottom," one of them said, a boy with shaggy blond hair and trunks at least a half-size too big.

"I'm not sure --" The boy on the edge of the raft shifted his weight back, away from the water.

"Come on," the other boy said. He could have been the first one's twin from this angle, only with a crew cut and green trunks instead of blue. "What's the matter, Sammy? Too scared?"

"It's Sam," the boy on the edge of the raft said, and he turned and I saw that he was. Not Sammy, the sullen kid who knew too much about the world to get excited about it, but Sam, full grown and simmering.

Cas had brought me right to him.

"Sam!" I raised my hand out of the water, desperate to get his attention, but he was already charging, long legs eating up the full span of the raft as though it were nothing. "No!"

The two other boys turned, and in the bare moments before Sam reached them, I realized I knew them. I shouldn't have even needed that long.

All the Winchester brothers stood on that raft, together again.

Then Sam slammed into Adam, sending them both over the side of the raft and down into the black.

*

I dove.

I knew the visibility would be terrible -- _just swim down the chain and grab something from the bottom_ \-- and that I wouldn't be strong enough to bring both of them back up. I'd have to chose.

I wondered if Adam knew that I'd always choose Sam.

Just below the surface the water was in turmoil, all raging swirls of gray and black like something out of an old painting. I couldn't see my own hands pressing down through the water in front of me. 

And then it cleared. 

It was like surfacing in reverse. The churning stopped abruptly maybe six feet down, sitting on the top of the still water beneath like an overcast sky. Here and there, columns of light broke through, sending finger-like spears down into the waving seaweed and clusters of rocks. The chain of the raft was a bolt of lightning, frozen in the very moment it struck the earth, and like lightning, it crackled against my skin when I tried to touch it.

Sam and Adam were nowhere to be found.

_Just swim down the chain and grab something from the bottom._

I wrapped my hands onto the chain. My fingers jumped and twitched, but held as I dragged myself downward.

The base of the chain was covered in a pile of lost objects. There were plastic army men and Lego blocks, broken crayons and cheap novelty erasers and what looked like half an old protractor. There were books, their covers so waterlogged and worn that they looked like strange water plants, the titles long lost to time. Everything that we ever left behind in a motel room was tucked in there. I had my pick of totems.

None of them meant a goddamned thing.

I reached out to the pile, running my fingers over a chipped coffee mug with "Number 1 Dad!" stamped on the side before nudging it away and thrusting my hand down like I was reaching into a bowl of sand, digging with my fingers and shoving bits and pieces of discarded life aside as I searched. 

I knew the moment I touched it I'd found the right piece. It was a warm buzz in the cold silent world, soothing after the hard shock of the chain. I scraped at the top of it with my nails before I managed to get my fingers around it, then pulled it up. It caught twice -- once on a red S-shaped key ring, again on the lid of a tarnished flask -- then came free so suddenly I nearly lost my grip on it. I clenched it in my fist and watched the thin leather cord drift in the faint currents.

My amulet. I should have known.

The world shuddered, suddenly roaring, and my vision whited out, jumping and twitching like I was surrounded on all sides by an enormous angry spirit. 

_\-- pulse just spiked._

_Sir! Sir, can you --_

When it settled again, I was lying on the rocky beach, bone dry, the amulet still clenched in my hand. Sam stared down at me like I was the most disgusting thing he'd ever seen in his life.

*

I was beginning to think this might be one of my worse ideas. "Sammy --"

" _No_ , Dean! You can't just 'Sammy' me this time and make it all okay."

I scowled, pushing myself up on my elbows. "I didn't do anything."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Oh _please_. You're screwing everything up just by being here."

If Sam was trying to piss me off, he was doing a damn good job of it. "Hey, you have no idea what's going on out there, man."

"Yes I do! It's the same shit that's always going on, and I'm sick of it." He kicked at the ground, sending up a spray of sand. "I'm not leaving. You can't make me!"

I frowned. Sam looked like he was about three words from threatening to hold his breath until I went away. "Jesus, Sam. What are you, twelve?"

Sam rolled his eyes again and folded his arms across his chest. "Uh, _duh_."

And I realized he really was. Just like that, my damned rhinoceros of a little brother was a five foot tall, floppy-haired brat in flannel two sizes too big for him. I gaped, then looked around. The lakeshore hadn't changed. I could still see the anchored raft a good fifty yards out. Up the hill, a little ways into the woods, I could make out some cabins. I tried to remember if Sam had ever gone to camp, but the thoughts slipped away through my grasping fingers. "Shit."

"It's not a big deal," Sam said, his anger cooling somewhat as he scuffed his foot in the dirt again. "Just tell Dad I ran away or something."

I'd forgotten how infuriating he'd been at this age. "Are you fucking kidding me, Sammy? Do you know what Dad would've done to me if I ever 'just told him' that?" What he had done, when Sam had swanned off in Falstaff? 

"Oh, fine! Take his side again!" As Sam glared down, the sky darkened, huge, heavy clouds rolling over with an audible rumble.

"I'm not --" I gulped down the protest and tried to push past the anger. I was old enough to be this Sam's father. Arguing with him like a teenager wasn't going to get either of us anywhere, especially not if he could summon storms when he got angry enough. "Okay, look. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, okay? You can stay here as long as you want. I'm not going to drag you out."

Sam frowned. "But you just said --"

Oh, sure, _now_ he was managing to follow the flow of events. "I was wrong. I'm not looking for you."

Sam beamed at me, and it was like sitting in the sun after getting caught in the rain. He bent down to catch me in a hug, practically lifting me bodily off the sand, then ran off down the beach, following the sudden sound of childish laughter.

"That's not entirely true, you know," Castiel said. I pushed myself up to my feet and turned to see him standing just at the edge of the tree line, his trench coat rustling in the breeze like a living thing. 

"Cas." I dug my hands into my pockets to keep from rushing him and either pulling him into a hug or punching him in the face. Just looking at him filled my chest to overflowing, but I knew he wasn't real. "Cryptic as always, I see."

He stepped into my personal space, and as irritating as it had been on the outside, here it just made me want to hug him even more. "I think we should talk." He put his hand on my shoulder, and I felt the familiar sensation of the world falling away from under me as my ears filled with the sound of wings.

*

"Okay," I said, rubbing my thumb over the "El Sol" label on my beer and watching the condensation gather into lines and pools in its wake. I took a long drink, staring out over the splintery wooden railing at Sam and the other kids of the camp running in the open field between cabins. The storm that had rolled over while we were on the beach dumped buckets of rain down on the roof of the porch, and thunder rumbled continuously overhead, but the kids were unaffected, dodging in and out of raindrops in an elaborate game of tag. "What are you doing in here?"

"I could ask you the same."

"You could, but that'd mostly just be really irritating." I looked over at Castiel, standing at the top of the steps up onto the porch. He looked better than when I'd last seen him, but then, that wasn't exactly hard to do. He looked the way I'd always pictured him in my head, rumpled but stoic, always just on the right side of exhaustion. "You part of me, then? I drag you in here like some kind of _Inception_ thing?"

He looked over at me, not saying a word.

"It's a movie, Cas."

"Ah." He looked back over the field, his hands folded behind his back.

"What are you doing here?" I asked again.

Cas was silent for a long moment as Jo -- a gap-toothed, pigtailed version of her, but clearly Jo nonetheless -- dodged out of Sam's long reach, shrieking about tag-backs and cheating. He nodded towards them, his expression dark. "I promised you I would fix him."

I took another long drink. "I remember."

"I want to make sure I keep that promise." He turned his head to look at me, then tilted it towards the kids in the yard. "You realize they're projections?"

"Yeah." I set the beer aside and stood up, going over to stand next to him. Jo wasn't the only one playing with Sam. I spotted Andy amongst the crowd, along with Madison and even Layla, pre-teen sized versions of their adult selves, giggling and splashing around in the puddles. "I guess people really can live on in someone's memory, huh?"

"After a fashion," Castiel said. "Some of us are more real than others."

"Sam," I said. "I have to find him. Before --" 

"You do," he agreed. "And you're running short on time."

"You know what happened to him? What _will_ happen, if I can't find him?"

"I'm aware of the consequences." He tilted his head as though he was listening to something far away. I tilted mine to match him, but couldn't hear anything but the game of tag and the roll of thunder. "We're not alone, here," Cas said finally. 

"What do you mean?"

"I haven't located it, yet. I've only sensed its presence. There are outside forces at work in this dream."

I swallowed hard. "The thing in the car. The one hiding in the backseat."

Castiel nodded. "There's something in here," he said. "And it wants you gone."

*

Jo ran back to grab my hand, grinning from ear to ear. She dragged me along the trail through the woods. "Come _on_ , Dean. Hurry up, you're going to miss it!"

Up ahead, Sam led the way, whacking branches and brambles and rocks with a long walking stick. The rest of the kids -- the campers, I supposed -- walked in formation behind him, singing The Turtles of all things as they went.

" _Imagine me and you,  
I do,  
I dream about you day and night,  
it's only right_ "

Castiel walked beside me, unaffected by the knee-high ferns or the sloped, rocky terrain. 

" _To dream about the girl you love  
and hold her tight.  
So happy together!_ "

"I think I like this song," he said. "It's much more cheerful than your music."

"Yeah, well, what can I say? Sam really liked _Ernest Goes to Camp_."

"That's another movie," Castiel guessed. 

"Yeah." I let Jo's hand slip from mine as she started to fall behind the rest of the group, and she rushed to catch up. Castiel and I weren't done talking, yet, and Jo didn't need to hear it, even if she was just a projection. "You said this thing's after me?"

Castiel nodded and looked over, dodging past a tree hugging close to the path with a simple twitch of his shoulder. "You're in danger."

" _Sam's_ in danger."

"Yes," Cas said. "Him as well." For a moment, I thought that was all he was going to say, but then he took a breath and continued. "I believe the being has been poisoning the Sams you've encountered. Against you, specifically."

"Say what now?"

"You must have noticed how antagonistic the Sams are being towards you. He tried to bury you, Dean."

Yeah, I wasn't forgetting that in a hurry. I could still just taste the dirt, feel it scrape between my fingers. "I noticed. But, hey, if I die in a dream, I'll just wake up, right?"

"Not necessarily," Cas said. "It depends on several factors, primarily the source of the dream itself."

"Right. Like it worked when the djinn had me under, but dying in an African Dreamroot dream just means you're dead."

Cas nodded. "So you have to ask yourself, Dean: why are you here?"

I swallowed, my mouth tasting brackish and slimy. "He's not going to kill me in here," I said. "He wouldn't. Sam doesn't hate me."

"He seemed quite angry on the beach."

"Yeah, well, we're brothers. That's just how we are, sometimes."

Castiel frowned. "I have never treated my brothers so roughly."

I snorted. "Wow. That's really not true."

Castiel looked down, stepping over a large rock. He hadn't had to look at any of the others. 

"Hey, man, I'm not blaming you. You brothers were massive dicks."

"Yes," Cas said. "There are those who would say the same thing about Sam's."

I stopped, staring at him. He took a few more steps, then glanced back, a faint smile at the corners of his lips.

"Damn, Cas." I pressed my hand to my chest, smirking back. "You really know how to hit where it hurts."

A bolt of lightning from the still gathered clouds slammed down into a tree not three feet from Cas, sending visible shockwaves out in every direction. As I was blown backward off my feet, I watched as Castiel's shape wavered and then exploded.

*

"We're under attack!" Sam screamed, and without thinking about it, I was running, leaving the scorched remains of tan trenchcoat behind on the forest floor.

If asked, many people will claim you can't run in a dream. That no matter how hard you try, your legs will always fail you. I've found that it's less a matter that you can't run at all, more that you can never, ever run fast enough.

I couldn't outrun the hellhounds in my final dreams before Lilith came to claim my soul. I couldn't outrun the demons in all the nightmares I've had since. And I could never, ever reach Sam in time when he screamed.

Which was why it was such a surprise when he came barreling back down the trail at me instead, surrounded on all sides by the other campers.

Layla smacked into me first, wrapping her arms around my waist before she even stopped running so that she swung around me like a pole before burying her face in my side. "What --" I didn't have time to finish the question before Madison and Jo hit my other side, Madison growling like an angry puppy while Jo dropped into a childish fighting stance, a giant stick in her hands. Andy and Chuck, scruffy-faced and hungover even at twelve, jittered around each other in a circle of flailing arms, while Sam skidded to a stop right in front of me, craning his neck to meet my eyes.

"We're under attack," he said again, calmly this time, like announcing the newest stage of an elaborate playground game.

"From who?" I asked. "Thor?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Dean. _Thor_."

"Well how the hell should I know? All I've got to go on here is thunder!"

"Are you kidding?" Sam asked, and though he was still a floppy haired twelve year old, his tone was pitch perfect for just-post-Stanford Sam, realizing daily just how braindead his non-college-educated big brother really was. "You still haven't realized --"

A crack of thunder like an explosion, the sort that shook the ground and set off car alarms, drowned out the rest of his sentence. All of us cringed, and I felt Layla's arms tighten around my waist until I could barely breath. We held still there, a circle of near feral campers and their seriously confused counselor, staring up at the sky. 

Then Chuck yelled "we're all gonna die!" and the campers all burst back into action, shooting out in every direction, shrieking half in terror and half in delight, kids scaring the crap out of each other just for the thrill of the adrenaline. I grabbed for the back of Sam's sweatshirt, but he dashed out of my reach, chasing after Madison, waving a stick of his own over his head with a proud bellow. I tried to follow, but suddenly found I really _couldn't_ run. My legs shook and stumbled, feet catching on vines and undergrowth. Small, unseen objects winged by inches from my face as I pressed forward anyway, the only sign of their passing the air on my face and the rattle of leaves as they struck the surrounding plants. I couldn't tell if they were bullets, rocks, or hail stones, if they were aimed or just scattered across the forest. In the distance, the kids chattered back and forth.

"The killer!"

"I saw him!"

"Run, run, run!"

"Thor! It's Thor! Grab a hammer!"

"It's not _Thor_ , you idiot, geez!"

"Well, then, what is it, smarty pants?"

"A _killer,_ duh!"

Apparently, Cas had been blown up by Sam's overactive imagination. As horrifying as it was -- I could have gone a long time without watching him do that again -- it was almost appropriate.

Of course, Sam's overactive imagination might be about to get me killed, too.

*

The woods around the campground were all hill, and most of it up. The grade of the incline seemed to grow with every step I took, until my boots were scraping up rocks and sending them spiraling down tiny cliffs. There was leaf-cover now, too, thick and wet from the storm still raging just behind me, rumbling angrily every time I thought about slowing down or stopping. I'd long since lost track of the kids, their shouts bleeding into thin shrieks before petering out entirely. All I could see in any direction was trees.

It always came back to the goddamn trees. Why couldn't it be a nice office building or a warehouse or a school? Hell, I could even deal with not wearing any pants or something, if I could just get out of these trees.

The break in the forest was so abrupt it sent me stumbling, my feet stuttering against the boulder I was suddenly standing on. "Okay," I muttered. "Not really what I meant."

The sharp incline had turned entirely to stone, a broken rock pile towering skyward, just steep enough to be difficult without -- hopefully -- requiring any climbing equipment. I started to turn, thinking I'd head back, when a jagged dagger of lightning split the sky, crashing to the ground no more than a few feet behind me, nearly knocking me over. I looked up. The cloud cover glared back, a wide, heavy brow bearing down on deeply pitted, charcoal eyes over a broad nose and tight, scowling lips. 

Whatever was after me here, it was in the very _atmosphere_.

"Fuck that!" I yelled. "I'm not going out there for you to blast me!"

Another lightning strike, this one even closer. The top of one of the trees exploded, raining embers and jagged splinters down onto me. I put up my hands, hissing as I waited it out. I looked up again, only to be blasted by cold, stinging rain. 

"You're not the one in charge here, you asshole!" 

The face in the clouds sneered back, its features blurred and stretched as the cloud cover shifted.

Fuck, I was having a staring contest with _the sky_.

"Dean!"

I spun again, searching. "Sam?!"

" _Dean!_ "

The voice seemed to be coming from everywhere. The rain kept coming, pouring down harder until I could barely see the rocks in front of me, the edge of the forest behind. "Sammy, where are you?"

And Sam screamed and I was in motion, scrabbling over the boulders, my nostrils filled with the mineral tang of wet stone. 

If running was difficult in a dream, climbing was downright impossible. It seemed no matter how many hand- and footholds I found, I could never get any higher. My muscles burned every time I reached up, my nails catching against the rough surface, my arches screaming as I pushed myself to my toes, desperate for every inch of reach. "Sam! Sammy, I'm coming!"

"Dean!"

I didn't know how, but I conquered the first boulder, scrambling on top of it into a tiny hollow. I pressed my palms flat against the slanted rock above me, searching for a route. A warped, scraggly bush jutted out of a crack maybe four feet away, just across a waterfall of rain water over the smooth rock face. If I could move fast enough, I just might manage to grab it before I fell. 

All I had to do was jump. I could make it. This was a dream and I was lucid. All I had to do is believe I could make it, and I would. I took a breath, setting my right foot as I started to lean with my left. 

And then I looked down.

_Jesus fuck._

It wasn't like in _Vertigo_. The distance didn't expand as I watched, the bottom dropping out from under me. There just _wasn't any bottom_. The trees I'd run through had vanished, and all that existed at the bottom of the rock pile was rain and darkness. 

I couldn't make it.

My feet slipped, then skidded, and I slid, unable to take my eyes off that goddamn _chasm_ at the base of the rocks, and then I was falling, outright _falling_ , nothing below or above me but sky and rain.

This was it. Moment of truth. I'd either wake up -- or I'd die. 

I honestly wasn't sure which I'd prefer.

A hand locked around my wrist and I jolted to a stop, my feet still dangling into nothingness. I gasped, my free hand flailing a few moments before I reached up and clamped onto the hand in return. It was huge, flat and wet, the muscles powerful and the knuckles rigid and I knew just who it belonged to. I closed my eyes and just tried to breathe.

"Sammy."

I looked up, and there he was. Not twelve, not furious, not hiding or glaring or pouting, just _Sam_ , my Sam, the right Sam, his face as sure as his grip was tight. 

"I've got you, Dean," he said. "I've got you."

*

It should have taken awhile to get back up on that rock. It should have been full of cursing and pulling and grunting and things. And for all I know, it was.

All I remember is Sam looking down, and then being sprawled across the rock, flat on my back next to him.

"You little bitch," I said, between gasps for breath and what I refused to admit out loud were sobs of relief. "I spend all this time looking for you, and you're the one who finds me."

Sam rolled his head, his ridiculous hair light and bouncy despite the pouring rain, his mouth pulled into a small frown. "You were looking for me?"

I closed my eyes, reaching out to thwack him in the chest. "Of course I was. Jesus, why do you think I'm even _here?_ "

"Oh," Sam said. " _Oh,_ you think -- Dean, we're not --"

A giggle blew in on the breeze, cutting him off and making me shudder. "Sammy. Tell me that's not who I think it is. Tell you don't have her in here, too."

"Dean, listen to me." I felt him shift on the rock next to me. "This isn't --"

The breeze turned into a wind, bringing with it a howling scream. My eyes flew open as I suddenly had to dig in my fingers to keep lying on the rock, the wind cutting past so hard and fast that I was beginning to slide sideways. I looked over to Sam and found him looming over me, his eyes wide and terrified, his mouth forming words that the wind stole away before they could reach my ears. 

"Sam, lie back down!" The wind was enough to make me skid, but Sam's giant goddamn shoulders were practically a sail, and he was being forced up and back. I stretched out my hand and lunged, wrapping my fist in his shirt, but I wasn't strong enough to hold on to him.

I wasn't strong enough to keep him safe.

His shirt ripped like paper in my hand, and as hard as I tried to grab on again, he slipped away too fast. He was screaming by the time he was headed over the edge, his mouth forming exaggerated shapes as he desperately tried to talk to me. The giggle rang in my ear as I fell back again, my face wet, unable to catch my breath. I understood. I knew what he was trying to tell me.

" _Wake up._ "

"Sammy, you son of a bitch. That's what I want _you_ to do."

*

I stumbled out of the woods onto a road and right into one hell of a hailstorm. Lightning lit up the sky, followed almost immediately by another shockwave of thunder that nearly took me to my knees. I tried to shield my eyes with my hand and winced as the hail bounced off the tender skin of my wrist.

Sam wasn't gone. He might have been torn away from me, but the world didn't exist without him in it, and here was the wind and the storm and the woods and the road, and all of them said _Sam_ in a deep, unconscious way I could never describe. I just had to find him again. I _would_ find him again. I refused to let whatever was trying to get between us win. 

It was the story of my life. No matter how many times I dropped him, I wouldn't let anything keep me from Sam.

The surface of the road was cracked and pitted, more dirt than actual pavement, and it wound back and forth through the trees towards a chainlink fence and a battered wooden sign bearing the name of the camp twelve-year-old Sam had made himself, though it was tough to make it out through the storm. "Chautauqua", it read, or maybe "Chitaqua". Some native word, probably picked to make the place sound more "authentic". I looked down the road away from the sign, where it trailed off into darkness. Something skittered amongst the trees, and the next flash of lightning lit up a pair of eyes staring back at me. I flinched back, my hand coming up to grab onto my amulet, where it rested against my chest.

I didn't remember putting it back on. The metal was cool beneath my fingers.

"Right," I muttered. "Not God, then."

I ran my thumb over the familiar contours of the amulet's face. I couldn't remember if I'd had it on the rocks. That was the trouble with dreams; details could flit in and out on a whim. I had to work to even keep track of why I was here, let alone what I had with me at any given moment. I let the amulet drop back against my chest and walked backwards a few steps before turning, deliberately giving whatever it was that skulked through the woods my back.

Fuck it. I could die here. I couldn't remember how I'd gotten here, what led up to this trip to Camp Dream-qua, but I was certain of that, now. But I sure as hell wasn't dying before I found Sam again.

*

The main campgrounds were deserted. No, not just deserted, _abandoned_. The place reeked of mold and wet decay, the cabins giving in to the drag of gravity like dead trees slowly crumbling back into the earth. Nothing remained of the kids who had run through here what had to only be a few hours ago, of the beers I'd shared with Cas on the porch.

It was all dead. Everything and everyone. Jo and Layla and Madison, Andy and Chuck, Cas. I'd been talking and running with nothing more than ghosts. 

The only thing that was real was Sam.

I sat down on the sagging porch of the cabin on the end, resting my elbows against my knees as I tried to work out what my next step should be. The road had led me straight back here, and I wasn't certain it would still be there if I tried to go back. Whatever I needed to find, whatever door would lead me on to wherever the wind had blown Sam, it had to be here somewhere, in this camp that tugged so firmly on the threads of my memory. 

I was starting to unravel. To fall into the dream and let it pull me under. I had to stay focused. I had a job to do here. I wasn't here for kicks. I pushed myself to my feet and started walking again.

There was someone sitting in the middle of the campground, right where the flagpole was meant to be. She was small and blonde and dressed in white, and she sat on her knees, digging her fingers down into the dirt. 

"You."

Lilith looked up, bright blue eyes shining. "Hi Dean! Didja miss me?"

I couldn't move. She sat maybe ten feet away, grinning at me through crooked teeth, her fingers covered in blood-red dirt, and I couldn't move a muscle.

"Betcha didn't think you'd see me again," she said. "Betcha thought Sammy had me allllllllllll sewn up." Her eyes went white. "Betch're just _dying_ inside."

I breathed out. "Fuck you." And I lunged, reaching for her neck, only to pull up short as strong arms wrapped around me from either side. I didn't look up, refusing to take my eyes off Lilith for even a moment. "Fuck you! I won't let you have him! You hear me? I won't let you have him! Not again!"

"Dean!" The owner of the arms on the left shouted in my ear, almost drowned out by Lilith's high pitched, delighted giggle. "Dean, dammit, listen to me! Dean!"

"I can kill her. Let me kill her, Bobby. I can do it, I know I can, just let me --"

"She ain't _real_ , son!" Bobby yanked me back and with Ellen's help spun me around, dragging me forcefully away from the grinning, giggling nightmare crouched in the dirt. I screamed, struggling harder. I could still hear her, still _feel_ her behind me, and it was Cas exploding and Sam slipping away, literally torn from my grasp all over again. 

"No!" The single syllable felt good coming out, round and forceful and so _full_ of everything I'd been holding in and holding down, so I said it again. " _NO!_ " And I threw up, hunching over as Bobby and Ellen struggled to hold me up, my body forcefully expelling all the toxic garbage my life had made me swallow until I felt small and fragile and dirty. "No."

"Shh." Ellen ran her hand over my head, tugging me gently in against her chest. I sobbed, my breath ragged, my entire soul throbbing, unable to hold myself in and together any longer. "It's alright, hon. You're gonna be just fine." 

"You with us again, boy?" Bobby asked, his hands still on my other arm. I wrapped my fist in his overshirt, only realizing as I felt the heat from his body how cold I was. 

"Bobby."

Bobby's hand gripped my shoulder, giving it a gentle shake. "Yeah, son. It's me."

I clenched my teeth, struggling to get my breathing back under control. Ellen stroked her hand over my head again, holding me up but not still as my shaking slowed. 

"Ellen?"

She hummed a yes. I could feel it vibrate against my cheek. 

"Bobby," I said again, and I used my fist in his shirt to pull him closer. "You're dead. You guys are dead, you're all dead."

"Yeah, kid." Bobby's breath tickled my ear. It should have been cold, the frosty breeze of the dead and restless, but it warmed me instead. "We just ain't letting that stop us."

I choked on a laugh and, after a moment, found the guts to open my eyes. "Lilith? She gone?"

"She never was," Ellen said. "Not really. Just a nightmare."

"It's all a nightmare. Worst dream I ever had."

"Then wake up, sweetie." Ellen took my face in both her hands. "Wake your damn self up."

I shook my head. "I can't." I swallowed. "I have to find Sam." I pulled back, struggling to collect the tattered strands of my dignity. "It's the only thing I can think about."

Ellen nodded, letting me pull away, though it looked like it cost her. I wondered if she'd seen twelve-year-old Jo, if seeing her hurt her the way seeing Sam could hurt me. 

"We know, Dean," Bobby said. I turned to see him standing there, faded but solid, his face drawn but still somehow younger than I'd seen it in years. "Question is, do you know _why?_ "

I frowned. "To -- to get him -- out of here." The words struggled on their way out, and I wondered why it suddenly felt so much less clear. "To get him away from -- from Lucifer. To _save_ him."

I hadn't seen Bobby look so heartbroken since I told him about the deal I made for Sam. "Sam's cured, Dean. Cas bit that bullet for him already."

"What?" I pulled back, only to be penned in by Ellen. "I -- no. Cas is gone. He -- the leviathans --"

"Left him reeling something fierce, but living."

"But this is _Sam's_ dream! I came in to find him!" I knew that. It was the only thing I'd been certain of since back in the car. Even faced with Amy and Gordon and -- and Alistair --

Why would Alistair haunt Sam's head?

"That's right, Dean." Ellen's voice was gentle but firm, and her grip on my arm matched it. "You already know this."

"No, I --" I squeezed my eyes shut. The kids, Adam on the raft, Demon Sam, _Lilith_. The camp itself. "Chitaqua," I said. "Sam's never been here. Zachariah brought _me_ here, not Sam. He's never seen this place before."

"That's it, boy." Bobby's voice backed up as I straightened. "Almost there."

"This isn't Sam's dream." I thought back, as hard and as far as I could. I remembered Cas, now, how it had felt to find him again, how it felt to leave him behind in return for having Sam back, whole if not healthy. There'd been a couple of cases after that, a demon here, a monster there, and then --

Dick Roman. The leviathans. A convention hall filled with the bastards, and with Roman's screaming human fans, all turning on us. We'd thought we were ready for them, but we weren't. A slam to my front. Pain across the back of my head, a foul taste in my mouth.

"Jesus." I reached up, feeling the back of my skull with my fingers. It was wet, sticky, and sickeningly soft. "I'm in a fucking coma?"

"There it is." 

That wasn't Bobby or Ellen. I opened my eyes to Ruby, standing and smirking in front of me. "Knew you'd make it eventually, Short Bus."

And she punched me in the face.

*

  


On the one hand, it was nice to finally be out of the rain. On the other, I really hadn't been looking to find myself tied to a chair in an abandoned warehouse. My subconscious -- _mine_ , shit, this was all in _my_ head, and how fucked was I? -- was determined not to do me any favors.

"You know, this is really just . . . _delicious_." Ruby loomed over me, all blond hair and hateful spite. I'd forgotten just how nasty she'd been in that body. "I mean, you have to be such a goddamn hero that your coma dream is about rescuing _Sam_ from a coma dream? Seriously, Dean, your issues are incredible."

"What can I say?" I rolled my shoulders, careful not to let the wire wrapping my wrists bite in too deeply. I couldn't be sure how long we'd been here, now, but my body was already aching. "I'm an overachiever."

She punched me in the face again, sending flares of white light across my vision. I felt something hot gush down over my lips. Dream broken noses hurt just as much as regular ones. "Not now, Dean. I'm trying to get in a good monologue, here."

"Oh goody."

"I mean," she continued, pretending to ignore me while she jammed her thumb between my teeth and pressed her hand back towards my ear, forcing my mouth open and my head back. "We all thought _Sam_ would win the crazy race. After everything he went through, and then Lucifer and the Pit like the evil cherry on top -- but _you_. Did you really think you made it out of Hell _whole?_ That you got a some panic attacks and a little raging alcoholism and that's it?"

I couldn't make more than a faint squawk with her thumb digging into the soft tissue behind my molars, but she took it as an answer, anyway.

"That's okay, sweetie. You've got plenty of time to make up for ignoring all of us. The gang's all here, you know. Everything you've ever hated and feared is lining up for a run at you."

I swallowed down on the pain in my jaw and my gag reflex and bit her thumb. She yanked her hand back and whacked me across the face. I spat blood onto the dusty floor and looked up, panting. Just like old times. 

"That's great," I said. "Really. Like I don't already know how to handle all of you."

"You do have your defenses," Ruby said with a nod. "Too bad you're stuck on the wrong side of them."

I started to laugh that off, then winced and choked as blood from my nose started to run down the back of my throat. "Wh-what?"

"Didn't you know? You've got a wall of your very own in here, Dean. And unlike Sam's, yours wasn't plastered in place by Death. Yours you built all. By. Your. Self." She grinned, blackness flooding her eyes in slow motion as she loomed over me. "The night on this side is so much longer. Sam will never find you before we've broken you down to your icky, gooey little component parts." She cracked her knuckles, then jammed both thumbs in my mouth, prying it open until I was sure my jaw would come off. "Now, say ah."

I let myself scream, a choking, beaten sound, while my fingers explored my restraints.

She'd screwed up. She'd let it slide that Sam was here, _actually_ here, that he was real and coming to find me. And no pain was greater than my will to find Sam. No pain in any world.

*

Admittedly, that was easier to say before they pulled out the needle and thread and went after my lips.

It wasn't just Ruby, anymore, oh no. She'd invited Ruby 2.0 along for shits and giggles, and, well, apparently a demon chick couldn't work me over without Meg getting wind of it.

Say what you would about Meg, and hell, I'd already said most of it, but girl knew her sadism. It was clear she'd trained under Alistair, even if she'd actually belonged to old Yellow-Eyes.

"Now hold still," she said. She was wearing Sam, pre-built-like-a-door Sam, back before his hair had quite reached its Pantene-ad glory. The Ruby's were rocking their full black-eyed glory, but Meg was a traditionalist. Either that, or she knew just how much seeing Sam's eyes staring down at me with that much venom hurt.

Fuck, what was I saying? Of course she knew that. She lived in my head, she knew _everything_.

She sat on my lap, her massive hand pressed against the bottom of my already swollen jaw, holding the large, hooked suture needle by my eye to make sure I got a good look at it. "You really don't want me missing with this, do you?"

I jerked against the wires around my wrists, no longer worried about cutting myself open on them. They'd long since sliced their way down to the bone. I lost feeling in my fingers sometime around the third round of tag-team whack-a-mole with the Ruby twins. 

In the real world, I'd be screwed. In the real world, they couldn't just reboot me when I lost too much blood to stay conscious. 

I tried to tell myself that in the real world, the feel of the needle stabbing through my lip and jamming into my gum would hurt a lot more, but frankly, I didn't want to think too much about what having my goddamn _lips_ sewn shut would feel like for real.

Meg was anything but gentle. With all four of Ruby's hands holding my head in place, she didn't have to be. They had me pinned down, even as I shook and twitched, unable to control my body's reaction to the pain. She tied off the last stitch with a flourish and stroked my forehead. "There. That wasn't so bad, now, was it?"

I panted through my nose and glared at her, doing my best to keep my stomach from turning over. The last thing I needed right now was to choke to death. Not before Sammy found me.

He would. I just had to hold on. Sam was coming. Sam was coming.

"Well," Ruby 1.0 said, letting go of my head and folding her arms. "I'm bored."

God, I really hated her.

"Relax, honey," Meg told her, shifting forward so that her hips were flush against my stomach, my nose just about buried in her chest -- her goddamn Sam-shaped chest. "We're just getting started." And she leaned forward, nearly smothering me with my own brother's body while she locked lips with Ruby 2.0. I turned my head and let out an angry grunt, and Meg pulled back with a grin. "Oh, sorry." She cupped my jaw with her hand. "Feeling a little left out, huh?" And she leaned down, all set to press Sam's lips against the ones she'd just spent the last five minutes destroying.

"Come, now, ladies," a new voice said, just before Meg got to work violating me with my brother's body. I felt all three of them shift, turning towards the invader. "Don't you have any sense of artistry?"

Fucking hell. _Bela._

Her nails scraped across my scalp, and I cracked my eyes open just wide enough to glare at her. "Of course they don't," she said, her lips curling in that infuriating smirk of hers. "They're part of _your_ head, after all, and you've never been much interested in beauty that didn't come with chrome or breasts."

Meg smacked her hand away, like she was trying to be my fucking hero or something. "And who invited you to this party?"

"Oh trust me," Bela said, circling, smirk firmly in place. "You want me here. If there's one thing I know how to do, it's make the most of any situation. Just ask Dean." 

I grunted, the most I could do without pulling painfully on the stitches in my lips. 

"See?" Bela said, smirk going full, canary-grin. 

"What exactly are you suggesting?" Ruby 2.0 asked.

"I'm not much one for telling, really," Bela said, waving them all back. When Meg refused to relinquish her seat, Bela's grin turned dark. "I wouldn't make me ask twice, darling. It's impolite."

Meg stared, still straddling my waist with Sam's legs, Sam's elbows propped on my shoulders. Bela stared back, one immaculate eyebrow lifted. "Whatever," Meg said, pushing herself to her feet. "I was getting bored, anyway." She turned as if to walk away, then paused and wrapped her hand around my chin, yanking my face upwards before leaning in and pressing a kiss against my lips. It was all I could do not to scream, and by the time I caught my breath, panting harshly through my nose, she and the Ruby's were lined up in front of me, identical expressions of skepticism on their faces. Bela looked as if she'd just been invited to a tea party with the Queen -- or more likely, to sell the Queen back her own crown jewels, piece by piece. 

"Alright," she said, rubbing her hands together. She circled me again, looking me over. I watched her as best as I could, forcing myself not to shake. Bela had been a lot of things, a grade-A, cold-hearted bitch not the least of them, but I'd never known her to be a torturer. "If we learned anything from Alistair," she leaned in over my shoulder, "and I know we did, it's that true torture can't simply be physical. We have to get Dean where he lives."

" _Yeah_ ," Ruby 1.0 said. "That's why we sewed his mouth shut."

"He does spend a lot of time there," Bela said. "The food, the snappy comments, even the sex. But that's not really what I meant." She snapped her fingers, and I felt the wires around my wrists begin to shift, twining together and stretching up my forearms, crisscrossing each other like ribbons as they bound my arms together even tighter, drawing my shoulders and upper body back against the chair. She made her way to the front of my chair again and tilted her head, nodding to the my legs. More wire seemed to erupt from the chair itself, snapping across my ankles and wrapping up around my calves and thighs. Another snap, and the wire turned barbed, sending tiny stabs of pain into my arms and legs, shredding my clothing as it continued to grow. 

"Poetic, isn't it?" she asked. "The way your bonds grow all by themselves."

The wires had made it to my chest, the ones from my arms snaking their way over my collarbones towards my throat. I tilted my head back automatically, trying to pull away from them, but all I managed to do was let the barbs dig deeper into my flesh. They wrapped their way up my neck just tight enough to be uncomfortable without cutting off my breathing, then started up the sides of my face, looping over my ears and cupping my jaw until I couldn't move a muscle for fear of it ripping into the delicate skin and scarring me for life. At last they made it up to my eyes and I couldn't help the muffled squeal of fear as the sharp ends came into focus only inches from me, before jabbing down.

I was only moments from hyperventilating by the time I realized that they hadn't stabbed my eyes out. Instead, they pressed into my eyelids, holding them wide open. 

"There," Bela said. "Now isn't that pretty?"

"Gorgeous," Meg said. My eyes flicked in her direction -- she was examining Sam's nails as if wondering how sharply she could file them. "Can we get back to hurting him, now?"

"Just a few more details." Bela leaned back into my field of vision, teeth bright, bright white between blood red lips. "Have you worked it out yet, Dean?" My only response was to gasp through my nose, but she took it as an affirmative. "Well, then, any requests? You're partial to Led Zeppelin, I believe." 

I squawked again, my body going tense as the warehouse went dark and an old projector started up somewhere behind me. The wall of the warehouse lit up with dusty, faded images, the kind that Dad might have taken if we'd ever had the time or the money for home movies. The opening chords of "Ramble On" came pounding out of nowhere, in perfect synch with crackle of the projector as Sam, tiny, innocent, happy Sammy waved out at me, grinning to show off his first missing tooth.

Meg and the Ruby's went back to work, slicing into my body wherever the wires hadn't already cut, and the sound that spilled forth from my throat, refusing to be held back by my clamped jaw or my throbbing lips, was filled with more pain than I knew I still had inside me.

Bela had gone fucking _Clockwork Orange_ on me.

*

They kept it up for what seemed like hours. "Ramble On" bled into "Kashmir", then "Immigrant Song", and on and on until we'd run through the entire Led Zeppelin catalog. On the wall, every happy moment with Sam I'd ever clung to played out, blurry, jumping, and so warm I would have cried if my eyes hadn't been so dry.

And they laughed. Meg and the Ruby's and Bela laughed it up like they were having the time of their lives as they carved into me, doodling patterns along my arms and across my chest with the points of their knives. 

Then the wall lit up with the sparks of the first firecracker, ushering in the final scene, the last truly, purely happy moment Sam and I had before it all started turning to bitterness and shit, the memory that had ushered me into my brief stint in Heaven.

I snapped.

They couldn't take that away from me. Not that. Not Sam. I heaved against the wires holding me to the chair with all my strength. I imagined it would be like watching the Hulk ripping off his own bonds in a fit of howling rage. Instead, I was the T-1000, slipping through and past the wires like my body had turned to liquid, reforming only when I was free. Meg and the Ruby's scattered, cursing each other as they went. I caught Ruby 1.0 by the ankle, tripping her up as she ran. She slammed into the floor and shattered, shards of her scattering across the concrete before dissolving into smoke. I grabbed her knife and caught Ruby 2.0 below the ribs and she vanished the same way. I turned, still fuming, my body trembling in my rage, but Meg had gone and only Bela remained, standing by the chair, applauding silently.

I lifted the knife to my mouth, carefully slicing through each stitch in turn until I could finally gasp in a full breath. I lowered my chin, spitting blood and drool onto the floor, then carefully wiped my chin with the back of my hand, the remains of my sleeve flapping in the breeze. 

"Give me one good reason not to gut you right here."

"Now Dean," Bela said, tilting her head with that knowing smirk. "You didn't really think we were _enemies_ here, did you?"

"Honestly Bela?" I smirked back, though it pulled at the various wounds on my face. "I don't think much of you at all."

"Well now." She looked around the warehouse, her eyebrow raised. "I think it's abundantly clear that _that's_ not true." She sobered, lifting her chin proudly, baring her throat without raising a single finger to stop me as I pressed my knife against it. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "You remember everyone you didn't save."

And the warehouse blew away, taking the chair, the wires, the projector, the blood, and Bela all with it, and leaving behind nothing but dust and dry air.

*

The desert stretched out unbroken in every direction, just an endless sea of rolling dunes and diamond-sharp sky. The sand was a mixture of tropical-beach white and Arizona red, banded in uneven lines all converging on my feet. I gripped my knife in my fist, the breeze making the tattered remains of my clothes flap without cooling me down in the least.

I tried to remember why I was here, but all my mind could grab on to was a grainy, over-bright image of Sam waving out at me, and white pain ripping up from the center of my belly, setting off flares behind my eyes.

_\-- seizing again --_

Ramble the fuck on.

I was supposed to go somewhere. To find someone. A wall. I had to go to a wall so I could find --

Sam, asleep in the back seat of the Impala while Robert Plant crooned from the radio and a knife pressed down into the small bones of my left hand.

_\-- ccs of lorazepam --_

I collapsed down, my knees gone weak. The sand made a terrible scrunching sound beneath my ass, though it was no more yielding than solid stone.

"I'm lost," I said. The breeze caught the words and carried them off somewhere far away from anyone who might hear, anyone who would care and come to help. "I've lost. I can't."

_You basically have been looking out for me your whole life. Now you finally get to take care of yourself. About time._

"I can't!" I screamed it out this time, an almost primal noise against the vast, hot emptiness of sand and sun and sky.

_\-- got him. We got --_

_\--re's his brother? --_

"Don't know." I shrugged my shoulders, pulling into myself on the sand. Whatever presence had been haunting me from the road -- the thing in the back seat, the killer on the mountain -- was gone. I was completely, thoroughly, _desolately_ alone. 

"I'm lost." I shut my eyes and pressed my forehead into the hot sand, the sun beating down on my back through the rips in my shirt. 

I'd never liked deserts. They played tricks, casting out mirages and rearranging distances. She was far away at first, no more than a flash on the horizon, and then she was so close, all white skin and red hair and such wide, wide eyes. It was as if she'd been formed from the desert itself.

"Anna."

"Dean."

I swallowed. It wasn't easy; the desert wind had already almost sucked me dry. "I've -- I'm lost."

She reached out a hand and pressed it to my forehead. "Don't be silly, Dean. We've found you."

And as the world vanished in an all consuming flash, I remembered she wasn't the one who was supposed to have found me.

*

Cool, smooth sheets. A pillow case, smelling of soap and flowers and just a hint of sex. Soft lips pressed against my temple.

"Dean." She whispered it in my ear, her hand a warm weight on my shoulder, just above the old handprint scar. She traced its outline with one finger, then slid her hand lower, over my arm and across my chest to my nipple, which she gave a wicked flick. "Dean, honey."

I grunted, turning my face more firmly into the pillow. She had feather pillows, as soft and yielding as anything I'd ever felt.

Feathers. There was something about feathers. Feathers meant I was home.

She laughed, a soft snort through her nose that she always tried to smother. "Oh come on. What are you, Ben? It's time to get up."

My eyes came open and I stared down into the wide white and red expanse of a striped pillowcase. "Lisa?"

"You were expecting to wake up next to someone else?" She held up a hand. "Actually, no. I don't think I want to know."

"Lisa." I blinked blearily, propping myself up on my elbow so I could look around the room, but she'd shifted around in front of me, now, and blocked my view.

"That's it. Me Lisa. You Dean. Boy waiting to be fed and driven to school Sam."

I jerked. "What?"

"Ben? My son? Kinda short, thinks you're the second coming of awesome. This ringing any bells, big guy?"

I shook my head, sitting up and bringing my hands up to run through my hair. I was naked. I hadn't slept naked since. . . .

No. I had it there, but it went away. I blinked up at Lisa, standing above me in one of my blue button downs and nothing else. She held out a glass of water, eyebrows raised at me, waiting for me to catch up.

She was good like that. She always gave me the minute I needed to readjust.

"Sorry. I, uh. Had a really weird dream."

"Yeah?" She smiled. "Clowns or midgets?"

I frowned. "Wait, you stealing my lines, now?"

"Is that one yours? I could have sworn I stole it from Ben."

"Well, he must've gotten it from me." I couldn't remember ever saying it to him, but I must have. I could almost picture it, packing up my bag in a motel with flamingoes on the wall, Ben gaping after me, like after more than twenty years, he still couldn't believe the things that came out of my mouth.

That wasn't Ben, though. That was -- it was --

"Come on, then. Don't keep me waiting here, Dean."

I looked up. The light of the sun coming in through the window had turned the edges of Lisa's hair gold, silhouetting her body perfectly under the loose material of my shirt. It was like looking up at an angel.

_Angels are watching over you._

I flinched, but Lisa didn't mind. 

She always gave me time to catch up.

"Dean. Dean. Dean. Dean. _Dean. Dean. Dean._ "

"What? Jesus!" 

Ben stood at my elbow, looking up. "Will you take me driving today?"

"I -- what?" 

We were in the kitchen now, though the light hadn't changed. Lisa looked up from where she stood at the stove, still dressed in my shirt. I looked down, hoping I'd at least managed to put on some shorts.

"You _promised_ , Dad."

I looked down, and Ben's hair had gone floppy, hanging down into his eyes. I reached out to muss it up and he groaned, batting me away with one of his massive hands.

"You're not old enough to do that yet." I frowned again, shaking my head. "You were eight only a couple years ago."

"Yeah, well, I'm all grown up, now," Ben said. He leaned against the counter next to me, all elbows and angles in his black t-shirt.

I shook my head again. "No you're not. You're not. It hasn't been _that_ long."

"Don't tease him, Dean," Lisa said. She set down her frying pan, filled with burnt bacon and runny, red eggs. "You know you're like a father to him."

I pulled back, the smell of the meat and smoke setting off an alarm in the back of my head. "No."

Ben's eyes teared up, and he was staring up at me again, head barely clearing the counter. "You don't love me?"

Fuck. "Jesus, kid, I didn't --" I ran my hand over my head. "Just, both of you, slow down a minute. My head's not -- I don't -- I'm lost, okay?"

Lisa put her hand on my arm. "It's okay, Dean. You're not lost. You're home."

Ben wrapped his arms around my waist in a hug and buried his face in my side. I stared down at him, then carefully set my hand between his shoulder blades. Lisa leaned in to kiss my cheek again.

"Now eat up, men," she said. "We've got training in thirty."

Sam came over after breakfast. He had his hair pulled back away from his face with a wide black headband, and wore a pink shirt.

"It's salmon, Dean," he said.

"Sam _and_ Dean," I corrected.

"Not for a long time now, actually," he said, and he pushed past me to kiss Lisa on the cheek. "How far are you two along?"

"How -- what?" Why did I feel like I was always half a lap behind in this conversation?

"Five months," Lisa said, and she pressed her hand to her belly proudly. Sam whistled. 

"Do you know what it is, yet?"

She shook her head. "Not yet. If it's a girl, we're going to name it Mary Ellen. If it's a boy, Garth." She leaned in to Sam, tilting her head up and shooting me a wicked grin as she whispered "Me, I'm hoping it's a yeti."

"Hot damn," Sam said, and he clapped me on the shoulder. "Maybe you'll luck out and get all three!"

"There's something weird here," I tried, holding up my hand to ask for a time out.

Sam looked over at Lisa, his brows raised. "Bad morning, huh?"

Lisa sighed, leaning back to counterbalance the wide curve of her stomach. "Worst we've had in a while."

Sam shook his head sadly, then pressed his hands against either side of my jaw, holding my head still so I had to look him in the eye. "It's okay. Your name is Dean. I'm Sam, and this is Lisa."

I jerked back, flailing my hand at his face to keep him from diving in for another try. "I know _that_ , you jackass! I just -- she's pregnant! With a _yeti!_ "

Lisa pouted. "We don't _know_ if it's a yeti, yet."

"I'm sure it is," Sam said with a smile. "Monsters run in our family."

That was about enough for me. I turned and leaped off the front porch, running flat out across the lawn, nearly running over the garden gnome ambling up with the morning paper before I made it to the street and out into the searing red and white sand.

*

When my legs went out again, Anna was there, kneeling in front of me, her hands on my shoulders the only things holding me up.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I thought you'd like that one. It's okay, though, I've found another."

And the world exploded again before I could protest.

*

 _Ghostbusters_ was on, the scene where Bill Murray has an eating contest with the weird little green blob and Egon turns into a blue demon with a giant white pompadour. Ben sat on the floor at my feet, leaning his back against my legs while Lisa sprawled out across the couch, her feet propped in my lap. All three of us had shotguns. Ben was almost done stripping his.

"Not bad," Lisa said. "Your timing's getting better."

"I don't like this one," Ben said. "It's got too many little bits."

"Those little bits might save your life sometime," Sam told him from where he was sharpening knives at the coffee table. "If you get this down, I bet Dean will let you pick at next week's movie night."

"Will you?" Ben asked, looking up at me. I stared down, wondering why I was having so much trouble pulling in a full breath. 

"How --" I shook my head sharply, setting the shotgun aside on one of Lisa's throw pillows. Lisa and Sam exchanged one of their 'he's slipping again' looks, and I swallowed the question. "Yeah, sure. Why don't you finish cleaning it up and you can show me how fast you can reassemble it?"

A knock came from the door, and Ben perked up. "It's Grandma and Granddad!" He bounced up, leaving all the little bits scattered across the floor, and rushed to the door. I leaned back in my seat, craning my neck to get at look at the door.

Mom and Dad came in, wearing heavy coats, loaded down with suitcases and packages. Mom made it through the door first and leaned over to scoop Ben into a big hug. Dad looked up and caught my eye over the back of the couch, flashing me a small, proud smile.

"He's getting big," he said.

"Yeah." I looked at where Mom was now pulling Lisa into just as big of a hug, then pulling back to admire her new pearl-handled Colt revolver. "Just wish he was mine."

"I know what you mean," Dad said. "I always felt the same way about your brother."

Fuck. "What?"

Dad blinked at me. "What what, son?"

"You just -- about Sam --"

"No I didn't." He turned around to pick Ben up into the air like he was no more than a sack of flour and the moment was lost. Lisa came up beside me, threading her arm around my lower back.

"Now we're just waiting on Bobby and Castiel, right?" she asked.

Castiel. A flash of pain and overwhelming guilt washed over me, followed by the smell of ozone and scorched trenchcoat. I frowned, turning my head to look Lisa over.

"How -- how do you know me?"

"What do you mean?"

"I had Cas wipe your memories. You and Ben. You shouldn't even know who I am."

Lisa scoffed. "Honey, even if Cas _could_ do something like that, why would he? Then Ben and I wouldn't know anything about hunting at all. We'd be helpless."

"I know, I thought about all that, but you -- you'd been kidnapped. The demons used you against me." My breath started coming fast and hard, and the room swam. "I couldn't let them do that to you again. I had to -- I had to let you go. I couldn't leave you in danger."

"Dean, you're not making any sense."

"Why does a garden gnome deliver your paper?"

"Okay, really, you're worrying me, now." She grabbed my arm, her hand matching up perfectly with the scar Castiel had left. "Why don't you come sit down? I'll make you some coffee."

"None of this is real."

"Quick, Mom," Sam muttered. "Hide the silver."

I backed up until I ran into a wall. "No, I'm not -- it's not a djinn. I can't get out that way. I have to be more careful, this time."

"Dean?" Lisa stepped forward, her hand coming up. "Dean, look at me. Please, honey."

A door swung open beside me, and everyone looked over, letting out a chorus of "Cas!" like they were the cast of _Cheers_. Castiel stood in the doorway, looking wide-eyed at them. The edges of his trenchcoat were crisped.

"Dean," he said. "What are you doing here?"

"Jesus, man, how the hell should I know?"

"We need to go." He grabbed hold of my wrist, and I didn't pull away. "Sam's looking for you. I can't --" he flinched, shying away from something I couldn't see, then straightened. "I can't take you all the way out. I guided Sam in, but I'm nearing the end of my power."

I nodded, grabbing him in return. "Anna, it was Anna, she's out there in the desert, she keeps sending me here --"

"Dean." Castiel stared me down. Anna might have been the desert sand, but Castiel's eyes were its sky, and they pressed into me, holding me in place. "Anna is not real. Everything you're seeing here, they're just remnants, pieces of your own psyche. You must remember that."

"Are you real?"

Cas nodded. "I am, but not all of me will be. You have memories of me in here along with all the others."

I tried to pull away. "How do I know? How can I tell who's real?"

"I don't know." Cas looked around. The room and the door had faded, taking Lisa and Ben and Mom and Dad and Sam all with them, leaving us standing once more in the enormous desert. He checked the sky and the ground, scuffing his foot deep into the sand, then looked me over. "Your amulet."

I reached up, wrapping my fingers over it. It was warm in my grip. "You want me to find God?"

"No, Dean. This isn't your actual amulet, just as most of the people you've encountered are not your actual friends and enemies. It can represent anything you want it to. Does it feel warm now?"

I nodded. It was even hot now, warmed by more than just my grip.

"Good. It's responding to me. It'll help guide you to Sam."

"Wait." I grabbed for his arm, terror welling up in my stomach. "Aren't you coming with me?"

"I -- I can't." He was starting to blur around the edges, his trenchcoat swirling around him. "I'm not what I once was. It's taking most of my power to hold Sam's Lucifer at bay." He faded even further, but offered me a weak smile. "It'll be okay. You'll be fine."

"Cas, wait!" I tried to grab for him again, but he blew away through my fingers. "Cas!"

I was alone again, just me and the sand. The amulet went cold and I squeezed my eyes shut.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. 

I wondered if I'd ever be able to say that to his face.

*

The desert stretched out forever in every direction. I wondered how many people I'd met would believe I had this vast wasteland in my head.

Probably all of them. 

I should have known that this wasn't Sam's mind I was wandering through. Sam's mind probably had some endless library stuffed full of all the facts he kept crammed in his head, ready to whip out just at the right moment to make me look like a total ass. Maybe it even had an alarm, some klaxon that went off blaring "DEAN WON'T KNOW THIS" with just enough warning for Sam to scurry through and dust off just the right fact to spout off in such a know-it-all tone. 

Goddamn it was hot. And bright. I was thirsty and aching and apparently just delirious enough to imagine Sam's subconscious mind as a crazy librarian submarine captain. Did submarines have libraries? Where'd he get a klaxon if they didn't? 

Fuck. 

I had no idea which way to go. Every time I tried to pick, I got three steps and became convinced I was wrong. There were no landmarks here, not even my own footprints, just endless, eternal sand. 

That was me. A big ass hunk of waste. Wasted potential, wasted time, wasted space. It wouldn't even matter if I didn't find a way out of here. I might as well just go back to that warehouse with Bela and Meg and the Rubys. My life -- my mind -- was an empty desert. 

"Dammit all to hell. You idjit, get your ass up off the sand." 

I looked up, having not even noticed when I fell. "Bobby?" 

"You were expecting someone else?" 

I shook my head. "No, I --" I swallowed. "You're not real." 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm a construct of your damn fond memories of me or some such thing. A function of your brain power. Tell me, kid, what were you and your brother always coming to me for out there in the real world?" 

"Advice?" 

"Damn straight. So what do you think I'm gonna be able to provide in here in your noggin?" 

My lips started to stretch into a pained, exhausted smile. "You know the way out." 

"And I'll give it to you once you get your rear up off the ground." 

"Dean!" 

I'd nearly made it to my feet when the second voice rang out, echoing over the dunes like we were in a vast cavern of blue, white, and red rock instead of an empty desert. I turned to look, and if it hadn't been already, my mouth would have gone dry at the person striding over the next dune. 

"Dad." 

He broke into a run, feet kicking up tiny clouds of dust as he went. I couldn't move, my feet trying to melt into the sand itself. "Dad." It came out as a whisper, this time. I could hear Bobby shouting for my attention, but couldn't bring myself to turn away from my father as he barreled up, slowing only as he began to crest the dune I stood on, his hand coming up as if about to land on my shoulder. 

"Dean." He smiled at me and shook his head, and it was as if I was lying on that hospital bed all over again, my father bending over me to give me his last words. 

_If you can't save Sam, you're going to have to kill him._

I reeled back as though I'd been slapped. Dad fisted his hand when I pulled away, drawing it back to his chest and nodding. 

"I deserve that." 

"Jesus, Dad." I felt like all the breath had been knocked from my lungs. "You deserve a hell of a lot more than that." 

"I know, Dean. At the time I couldn't see another way out." 

"You told me to kill him! My own brother! You said 'don't be scared' and then told me I'd have to murder the only family I had left!" 

"And I was wrong. Wasn't the first time, either." 

"Why --" I bit the words off and swallowed, desperately trying to wet my mouth in the baking heat of the desert. "Why are you here?" 

"I want to make up for it. I'm going to get you out of here." Bobby cleared his throat, and Dad looked up, over my shoulder, and nodded. "Singer." 

"John," said Bobby. "Nice that you finally want to lend a hand, but I got it from here." 

Dad's expression darkened. "He was never yours, Bobby. No matter how much you wanted him to be." 

"Done better by him than you did," Bobby said. I could feel him coming right up behind me, glaring at Dad. Something opened up deep in my chest that I'd locked away years ago. 

"Guys," I started, twisting and stepping back to get out from between them. Dad moved in quick, filling the space with the same bulk and power I remembered from when I was small, when Dad was a vengeful hero, infallible and indestructible. 

He hadn't been that in a long time. 

Bobby straightened his shoulders, refusing to be cowed, his moustache twitching with barely suppressed rage. He didn't even look over at me when he spoke. 

"Come on, Dean. The way out is over this way." He held out an arm, pointing back and to his left. 

"Don't listen to him, Dean," Dad said. "We need to head that way." If Bobby's direction was north, Dad pointed southeast. 

"The hell are you taking him that way?" Bobby growled. "We're trying to get him out, not dead." 

"We don't have time to do this your way, Singer." Dad loomed over Bobby, arm still stretched out. "We're going to have to take some chances, here." 

"Bein' an idiot ain't the same as takin' chances, John." And Bobby suddenly looked at me, his face softening as it did. "I steer you wrong yet, son?" 

And then Dad was staring at me, too, though he'd never been one for emotional pleas. "Well, Dean? Which is it going to be?"

I stared from one to the other, my father to my mentor, and damn if it wasn't hard to keep straight any more which of them was which. Bobby and Dad stared back, mouths curved down in identical frowns. I stepped back, shaking my head. My foot hit something solid in the sand and I stumbled, my ribs twinging, and suddenly I was angry. I stood my ground, hands fisting at my sides. 

"What the hell?!" I demanded. "I'm not choosing between the two of you! Jesus, what is this, some kind of crappy movie?" I stomped forward, hands coming up to push both of them back as I stormed between them. "Fuck that. I'm a fucking adult, and this is _my_ head. I'll figure it out myself." 

"Dean --" Dad started, and I cut him off with a wave of my hand. 

"No, Dad. Sam and I have been on our own for awhile now. We may have fucked it up along the way, but dammit, we've done our best." I stared him in the face, knowing as I did that this wasn't my real father, that it was only my twisted memory of him, of a lifetime of following his orders without question. "I love you," I said. "But I haven't needed you for a long time. Which is probably a good thing, 'cause you were one fucked up son of a bitch." 

Dad stared back, his frown twisting into the sad smile I'd seen in the cemetery in Wyoming. He nodded, then flickered and vanished in a juddering flash of white light. 

"Atta boy," Bobby said, and I turned to him. "Now, let's get out of here, huh?" 

I shook my head. "You've never been anything but good to me, Bobby," I said. "But Dad was right. I don't have time to play it safe, here. And I can't -- I can't always be waiting for you to back me up, anymore. I gotta let you go, too." 

Bobby stared at me for a long moment, searching my face for some crack in my resolve. He nodded slowly. "Alright, then." 

And he vanished as well. I let out a breath and nearly gagged, suddenly convinced I'd made a huge mistake. "Bobby?" I looked around me. "Dad?" 

I waited for some sign that they hadn't left completely, that they were still lurking just out of sight, ready to catch me when I fucked this up. 

All I found was sand. 

My eyes ached. I ran my hand down my face, breathing in deep as I tried not to let that ache turn into full blown tears. 

I'd thought I was done mourning Dad. That I could get past losing Bobby. But that wasn't how grief worked. I shut my eyes, swallowing down on the stone resting high in my throat. 

"Thank you," I muttered, figuring it was about as close as I'd ever really get to saying "good-bye" to either of them. Then I opened my eyes again, picked a path that split the difference between the one Dad pointed out and the one Bobby wanted me to take, and I started walking.

*

  


It should have taken forever to cross the seemingly endless desert, but it only took until sundown before I spotted a glimmer on the horizon.

Looked like this part of my mind wasn't completely empty, after all. 

I broke into a staggering run when I spotted it. The desert wind had sucked all the water from my body and my skin felt dry and tight across my arms and my face, but I knew I was getting close. I lifted my hand to my amulet, bouncing against my chest, and felt it start to warm. 

"I'm coming, Sammy." 

The sun dropped fast, and with it the temperature. I feared I would be left to fend for myself in the dark, but the stars appeared the moment the sun vanished, a thick, bright field of them covering the enormous black bowl of the sky, more than I'd ever seen in the real world, even on the most remote of roads. The starlight turned the desert gray, but lit it just as well as the sun. I felt rejuvenated by it, lifted up by the cool breeze it brought. 

For the first time since I confronted Lilith, I really believed I could do this. 

I kept running.

*

From a distance, the wall looked like a massive stained glass window done up in brown, green, and white, an abstract tiled mosaic dividing the desert. As I got closer, the white went clear, and the tiles took on distinct shapes, speckled here and there with torn and faded paper.

The entire thing was made out of bottles. Empty fifths were nestled in next to longnecks and forties, and here and there I even spotted the occasional old jug. They were mortared together with what looked like coffee grounds and blood, staining even the clear bottles a gritty brown at the edges. The wall stretched maybe four stories up at its highest point, the top edge undulating roughly into the distance, probably circling the entirety of my subconscious. I stopped a few feet from it and reached out a hand, but pulled back before actually touching it. 

"Well. That's disgusting." 

Something growled behind me, and I felt my heart seize up and leap into my throat before I slowly turned, keeping my hands up and open. 

It stood only a few yards away, crouched down on its front legs, teeth bared as it rumbled like a lion. Deeper, even -- fucker was the size of a goddamn polar bear, though its matted fur was black, not white. Its ears were laid flat back on its head and its tail stretched taught, the tip not even flickering as it stared me down. Worst of all, it had friends. 

Fucking wall was guarded by hellhounds. 

"Nice puppy," I tried, though it came out as more of a squeak. Alistair and Lilith, Meg and the white-eyed Sam, they all scared the everloving shit out of me, but none of them held a damn candle to a goddamn hellhound. Hell, I could barely look at a small dog some days without remembering the feel of those massive claws ripping into my thigh as Lilith's hound dragged me off the table, the slice and burn of its teeth as they shredded my chest. That was the thing about hellhounds: they didn't just rip you open. Their claws and teeth burned in your wounds like acid, a feeling that lingered long after they'd finished with you. I more than froze when I saw that hellhound. I was like a damned mouse in front of a snake. I didn't stand a chance. 

The hellhound tensed to spring as its buddies began to howl. I couldn't bring myself to look, but I had a feeling that more of them were coming, circling in from every direction. These bastards weren't going to let a single fucking entity out through the wall. 

I guessed maybe that was the point. I had to have put them there, right? These were _my_ hellhounds, _my_ nightmares. They guarded _my_ wall. 

It took everything I had in me, more than I would ever have thought possible, but I straightened, lifted my chin, and made eye contact. The hellhound's eyes were an unholy miasma, yellow and red and black swirling around and around almost hypnotically, igniting a primal terror at the merest glance. I held its gaze, anyway. 

" _Down_." 

The hellhound cocked its head, looking for all the world like a confused labrador. 

"Back. The fuck. _Down,_ " I commanded, throwing as much weight and authority into my voice as I could muster. "I'm not afraid of you." 

The hellhound pounced. 

I must have blacked out, or maybe locked the whole thing away in its own tiny booze-bottle cage somewhere out in the middle of that fucking desert. I honestly couldn't tell you what happened between the hellhound leaping forward and Jo yanking it off of me, her pale lips curled back from her teeth as she wrestled it to the sand. 

I pressed my hand to my chest, rubbing it down over my t-shirt, and was startled to find it whole. The memory of gashes, of that ever present burn, had seeped down past my ribs into my lungs, and I was having trouble breathing. 

_\-- going on?_

_He's fighting --_

"I'm trying!" I yelled, and when I looked up, Jo was there, her hand stretched down to me, her stomach a gaping, bloody mess. Behind her, the hellhounds cowered back. 

"Hey," she said. "You okay?" 

I grabbed her hand and let her haul me to my feet, my other hand still pressed tight to my chest. I winced as I straightened, then stared past her to the hounds. "How did you --"

"You almost had 'em," she said. "You shouldn't have lied. You have to learn to trust yourself." 

"Thanks, Yoda," I mumbled, staring down at the gash across her stomach while I tried to catch my breath. "Where'd you come from?" 

"I stick close to the hounds," she said. "We have an understanding." 

"They killed you." 

"You can't blame the dog for the master's orders." She smiled. "Hey. It's good to see you." 

I shook my head, ducking my chin and panting through my nose. "Not s'posed to be here." 

"Nope. Doesn't mean it's not nice to see you, anyway." She raised her hands to my face, cupping my jaw. "Hey. Hey, stop trying, okay? Just let it happen." 

I stared back, confused. My chest was still locking up, and it felt like something was jammed in my throat, keeping me from taking a full breath. "I can't --" 

"Relax. Look at me. Just forget about it, okay? Stop fighting." 

I opened my mouth, wanting to tell her that I _couldn't_. That I didn't know how. That all I'd ever done my entire life was fight and if I stopped now, then it was all over. I might as well not even exist. 

Then I realized she meant my breathing. I snapped my mouth shut again, held her eye, and tried to force myself to relax. Slowly, so painfully slowly, my chest opened back up, and I could feel air rushing in and out again. 

"That's it, Dean." She smiled. She looked so much younger when she did that, like the pissed off kid who'd first punched me at the Roadhouse. 

She'd probably punch me again if she heard me calling her a kid. 

"Hey," I said, when I no longer felt quite so much like I was inches from flying to pieces. "When did you get so smart?"

She shrugged. "Maybe it's a dead thing. Or maybe I always kind of was, and you just never noticed." 

"Nah," I said. "Must be 'cause you're in my head." 

She snorted and let me go. "So what're you doing here, anyway? You're usually on the other side." 

"Took a wrong turn in Albuquerque." Or was it New Haven? "Trying to find my way back." 

"Can't help you with that one," she said. "I've been working the wall with the dogs for ages, now. Never did see a door." 

"What about Sam?" I asked. She looked up, tilting her head. 

"Which one?" 

Just how many did I have in here? "The real one." 

She shook her head. "Haven't seen him, either, but you could try the dogs." 

The hellhounds growled softly. I felt cold. "I'm not sending hellhounds after Sam." 

She lifted her hands. "Right, sorry. Forget I mentioned it." 

I nodded, then lifted my hand to my chest, where the amulet was meant to be resting. It wasn't there. I'd gotten so used to its absence over the years that I hadn't even noticed when I lost it. 

The hellhounds growled again, and I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed. "You gotta be kidding me." I turned slowly, gathering my courage before looking over. 

The leader of the hellhounds, the big ass fucker who'd tackled me, gnawed on a broken leather cord, something golden winking in the starlight at the corner of its glistening lips. 

Jesus fucking Christ.

"Jo," I said, eyes still glued to the amulet. "Jo, make it give it back." She didn't answer. I looked up. "Jo!" 

She was gone. 

I was going to have to get the amulet back myself. 

_Fuck._

*

"Okay," I said, eyes once more locked on the amulet dangling from the hellhound's jaws. "Okay." I almost added _I can do this_ , but that'd just be asking to get mauled for lying all over again. "Uh. Nice doggy?"

The hellhound crouched down, dropping my amulet between its front paws and gnawing happily on the cord. 

"Wow, I am really not going to put that back on, again." I swallowed and started inching forward, hands out and open. "Easy." I wasn't sure if I was saying that to the hellhound, or to myself. "Easy does it." 

What did Jo say? I had to learn to trust myself. Because this was all in my brain and so it was all just an extension of me. The wall, the hellhounds, the amulet, it was all just me. 

I was so fucking messed up. I mean, I'd known that for years, but it was a little different to have it suddenly proven by the giant nasty nightmare on four legs using my one way out of here as a chew-toy. I had to think through this. I had to get to the truth. 

Because, you know, the truth had always been _so good_ to me and my family. 

I took a deep breath, holding out a trembling hand. "Okay. Okay, so that means, what, I secretly don't want to leave? That I like getting tortured by my enemies for all eternity? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I've done that before. And it sucked." 

The hellhound's ears were cocked forward. I thought maybe that meant it was listening to me. Guess I at least knew if I was getting it right or not. 

"That's not it, is it?" I asked it. "This isn't because I _want_ to be here. It's the head injury. The leviathans bashed me so hard that I'm punishing myself -- dammit _no_." I ran my hand through my hair, wincing as a flash of pain sparked behind my eyes. "No, please. That can't be it. I can't -- I don't deserve this." 

The hellhounds howled, and I opened my eyes again. "I don't deserve it," I said again, more firmly this time. For a moment it was as if I was in a motel room, staring myself down. Somehow, it was easier to yell and scream and shoot at another version of me than the hulking beast I was trying to talk to, now, but it seemed to be working. The lead hound was looking up, the amulet clenched between his paws, his tail giving a tentative swing. "I know I'm fucked," I told it, words spilling out now that I'd gotten them started. "I always have been. I should be locked back up in that psych ward we left Cas in. My head's so full of fear and pain and -- and hate that I can barely find my own way out. But I don't deserve it. I'm -- I'm better than this." 

The hellhound didn't pounce. It slowly stood, head lowered, and crept forward, the amulet once again dangling from its teeth -- and dropped it at my feet, its tail wagging. 

"Holy shit." I stared down at it, wondering why I'd thought it was so large and so scary, before. Damn thing wasn't even a hellhound, not really. Not even a Black Dog. Just a big, scruffy street mutt. "I guess I wasn't lying that time, huh?" 

The dog huffed a soft "woof!" I slowly crouched down, stretching out my hand to grab the amulet. The dog leaned forward and I froze, but it was only sniffing at my hand. 

You can't blame the dog for the master's orders. "You're keeping folks back, huh? Making sure none of the nasties get through?" Hellhounds were the most vicious, terrifying creatures I could think of, save only the leviathans. Of course I would have them around to keep the other scary shit back. 

I lifted the amulet and clenched it in my hand. It was warm to the touch. I was close. 

"Thanks," I said to the dog. "I think I've got it, now." 

And I turned back to the wall, the amulet locked in my fist, and I reached out to press my other hand against the cool glass.

*

Rain.

The rush of tires against wet pavement. 

Leather and gun oil and whiskey. 

The purr of her well-tuned engine.

*

I yanked my hand back, blinking against the blinding light of the sun reflecting off the wall.

"The hell?"

I tried again.

*

Soft hair and softer skin. Coconut and lavender. A panting breath and a lingering kiss.

*

"Shit." I stepped back from the wall again, running my free hand through my hair. "Shit, no. I can't do that."

The amulet grew hot in my fist, and I nearly dropped it. 

"Dean!" 

"Sammy." My hand clenched so hard the amulet burned my fingers, and I turned. "Sam!" 

He was there, running up along the wall. His hair was long and brushed back from his face, his sideburns just on the edge of turning into full mutton-chops. His shoulders could span continents. He towered over the hellhounds, which parted before him like water against the bow of a ship. As he jogged to a stop in front of me, I let the amulet drop from my now-singed hand. I didn't need it, not any more. This was it. This was really him. 

"Sam. I've been looking for so long --"

"I know." Sam pulled me into a hug, pressing my head into his shoulder, holding me there both just too long and not long enough before pulling back. "I know, Dean. I found you. I finally found you." 

"It's pretty fucked up in here." 

"You don't know the half of it." 

I thought about the road and the mountain and the never-ending desert. I tried to picture what the other half might be like and shuddered. 

"Can we get out of here, already?" 

"Yeah." Sam smiled, a poor imitation of the full blown grins I remembered from when we were young. Neither of us had made it through life unscathed. I wondered what his head space looked like, if it really had libraries and klaxons, or if it was a lake of fire like the white-eyed Sam had said. I knew I didn't want to know. "Come on." Sam offered his hand, and I pressed mine into his, wondering if this would be like an angel deal, if Cas would now somehow zap us back to the waking world. Instead, Sam turned towards the wall and walked right into it. 

Scratch that. He walked right _through_ it. 

I held on tightly to his hand, wondering if he knew some secret, illusory entrance like the walls in _Labyrinth_ or something. But where he'd gone right past the bottles as easy as if they were nothing more than light and air, my hand struck solid glass.

*

The air from the heater was musty and warm. Almost time to change the filter. Not in the next town, maybe, but the one after that.

Easy, sleepy guitar seeped its way out from the radio in tune with the gentle _vwoosh_ of the windshield wipers.

*

I yanked my hand away with a hiss, shaking it out and breathing hard. Sam stood on the other side of the wall, broken and warped by the shape of the bottles, staring down at his own hand.

"Dean!" 

I shook my head. "I can't get out that way, Sam!" 

Sam pressed his hand flat against the wall, and though I watched his face carefully, I couldn't see any sign that he was affected by it the same way I was. 

Made sense. It wasn't his wall. 

"You're going to have to break it down." 

I closed my eyes for a moment, and felt him watching me through the wall. "That was you, wasn't it?" 

"What?" 

"When it felt like someone was there, like there was something following me. At the road, in the woods. That was you, right?" I opened my eyes again when he paused. He stared back at me and swallowed, his shoulders twitching. 

"Yeah. Probably." 

He'd always been a pretty crappy liar. 

I thought of that thing, whatever it was, getting out past the broken down wall. The very idea made my chest seize up even harder than the hellhounds had. "I can't do it, Sam." 

"I'm not leaving you here!" 

I swallowed hard. "Maybe you have to." 

"Dean, no." 

"Wall's here for a reason. I fucking built it myself, didn't I?"

"But it's going to _kill_ you, Dean. Your body is wasting away!" 

"Maybe it's supposed to." 

Sam had both hands against the bottles, now. Whatever let him slip through last time didn't seem to be working both ways. He pounded against the wall, and it barely shuddered. "Dean, please!" 

"Dick Roman. Did we get him?"

"Yeah. Yeah, Dean, the leviathans are gone." 

I shrugged. "Then we're done, right? Nothing -- nothing to come back for." 

"Are you kidding me?" Sam pounded harder, but all he got for his efforts was a dull, empty _thud_. "Dean!" 

"I can't, Sam! I -- Jesus, when yours came down it almost _broke_ you!" 

Sam pressed his palms flat on the wall again and leaned his forehead against it, eyes closed. "I know. But you're stronger than me." 

"I'm really not." 

"You are, Dean. Do you think I could have lasted thirty years?" 

"You lasted longer!" 

"I wasn't given a choice, Dean! If I'd had the chance to get out, to turn the tables, I would have taken it in a heartbeat! I always would have, but you -- you held out. For _thirty years_ you refused to let Hell change you. And even after it did, you didn't let it keep you down. You built this wall with blood and tears and -- apparently a shit-load of alcohol and caffeine but you _did_ this. You can do it again. You can hold all this crap back and live your life, but only if you break through, now." 

I stared at him, breathing hard, my hands fisted at my sides. I didn't say a word. There was nothing to say. I couldn't even tell him he was wrong. I just didn't know. 

He was so certain, though. He stared back at me, pressed up against the outside of the wall, his eyes wide and hopeful, and in him I could see all the other Sams, the twelve year old kid with the bad attitude, the vicious demon who could turn an entire woods against me. The boy I'd always known, and the man I spent years trying desperately not to meet. Sam was all grown up, had been for years. But somehow, he still needed me. 

"Fuck you, Sam." He scowled, mouth working, and I continued before he could bitch me out. "If this fucks me up even more, I'm kicking your ass." 

Sam nodded quickly. "I'll let you. Just come back to me." 

I backed up several paces, looking the wall over for weak spots. It was solidly constructed, but I knew it could crumble with just the right point of pressure. I couldn't believe I was about to do this _on purpose_. I took a deep breath, set my feet, and with my arms held high above my head, I ran full speed at the wall, slamming into it shoulder first.

*

She wrapped herself over me, our bodies somehow fitting precisely together on the Impala's back seat. Her hips ground into mine in perfect rhythm with the music and the rain. She was every woman I'd ever loved wrapped into one: Lisa's compassion and Cassie's pragmatism; Jo's enthusiasm and Anna's empathy; Ellen's ferocity and that amazing nipple trick that Annie had picked up god knew where. We could live our entire lives together on that backseat, spend a decade between notes from the radio, eons in a single roll of thunder. The Impala was our eternity, our paradise.

And it hurt more than anything else I'd ever imagined. 

It wasn't real. More than that, it never could be. The woman didn't exist, not without Lisa's know-it-all attitude and Cassie's inflexibility, Jo's naivety and Anna's martyr complex, Ellen's over-protective nature and Annie's wandering affections. She was a copy, everything that could have made her real lost somewhere in translation. 

"Carmen," I whispered against her lips. "I'm sorry." 

And I rolled out from underneath her. The car dissolved around me as she screamed, and suddenly I was rushing at the asphalt, my body smacking against and then through it with the sound of shattering glass. The screams grew louder, escalating into an unholy shriek as everything I'd kept locked inside, all the fear and the anger and the hatred and the darkness, it all came rushing forward in a vast wave, crashing into me and sending me spinning, wrapping me in a prickling haze, like I was wearing a coat of needles, like my body had been asleep for ages and I was just now --

Waking up.

*

I burst forward and upward with a choking gasp and wondered why it felt like deja vu. I gagged, expecting to feel something -- a vine or maybe a thumb -- pressing down my throat, blocking my airway. Save for the tickle of a tube running up my nose, my breathing was clear.

 _Stop fighting,_ Jo whispered, and I tried, oh god, I tried. I coughed and heaved, trying to roll onto my side, but my body wouldn't listen. It twitched and twinged, and for a moment I thought I was wrapped in barbed wire, locked into place by the needles pressing into my skin. 

It wasn't barbed wire, though. It was only an IV. 

"Dean." Sam was right there, leaning over me. I expected him to look exhausted, like he hadn't slept in days, but instead he was bright eyed and chipper, smiling down like he thought he'd never see me again. Of course, he'd had the easy part: it hadn't been his dream. I wanted to resent him for it, but I couldn't find the energy. "You're okay," he said. "You're in the hospital. They just took you off the ventilator this morning, so your throat might be a little funky." 

That smile. Fuck. I hurt everywhere, but there Sam was, grinning away. I had the irrational urge to smack him, to scream and pull away. 

_Everything_ hurt. 

My chest heaved and I licked my lips. They burned at the touch of my tongue, and for a moment I thought I could feel threads still dangling, the stitches cut but not pulled. Sam raised the back of the bed and some of the pressure on my chest let up. He swooped in with an ice chip, letting it linger on my chapped lips while he waited for me to crack my mouth open and take it in. The whole time, he kept talking. "You made it, man. You broke your way back through. It's over now. It's all over." He reached for something over my head, but I couldn't bring myself to care what. 

Waking up in a hospital was always bad. It hurt, no matter how much morphine or oxycodone or whatever they pumped into me, it ached deep down in my bones, further than even the hellhounds could reach. Hospitals after a head injury were even worse. Concussions brought my guard down, and something always slipped out. 

It wasn't slipping, this time. There was nothing left to slip past. I could feel it in my lips where the ice touched them, in my ribs which seemed to scream and warp with every breath. It was in my limbs where Meg and Bela and the Ruby's had carved their initials, where the fire had burned and the vines had wrapped and the sun had beaten down. It was barreling out, grinding the shattered remains of my wall into so much empty sand. 

It wasn't something. It was everything. All the pain, the horror, the guilt, the fear, the grief, the sickness, and the rot that lurked at the bottom of my soul, everything I'd tried so desperately not to think about or remember since Cas yanked me out of Hell. It was all there. There was nowhere left to hide. 

All I'd wanted was not to feel anything. Now I could feel it all.

"Woah," Sam said, and suddenly he was swooping in again, this time with tissues. He pressed them up to my cheeks, scraping against my over-sensitized skin. My breath hitched and my eyes burned and if I could have, I'd have pulled away. "Woah, I got you. It's okay. I got you, man." 

_What's up?_

_Nothing._

Sam ran his hand up over my forehead, slipping his fingers into my hair as he continued to wipe the tears off my cheeks. I stared down at the sheets, waiting. 

"Are you okay?" was the stupidest question we could ask each other, but that didn't mean we didn't ask it. That we didn't check in, make sure we stayed at the right level of really-seriously-not-freaking-okay. 

And then Sam dropped his head and looked at me, looked me right in the eye, and instead of asking, he just said "I know." 

Just two words, but suddenly I could breathe again. 

_What's up?_

_I'm lost._

_Stop fighting._

_I can't._

_I know._

  
**The End**  


  
**Notes and Acknowledgements**  


Holy crap, you guys, I cannot believe that I'm posting my _fifth_ completed **spn_j2_bigbang**. Like, really. Can't. Five years ago, I was arguing that I just "don't do word counts or long format stories" and here I am. I have actually managed to track events in my life by what big bang I was posting that summer. I mean, COME ON.

Anyway. So. This bit of craziness right here. For the first time since I did "Fool for Lesser Things", I actually went into this big bang back in January _with no clue_ what I would write about. Seriously. You should have seen the hoops this story went through as I jotted down bits of nonsense and random lines and tried to figure out what they wanted to turn out to be. I had a couple things in my head: I wanted to _play_ , mostly. Play with world building, with language and symbolism and details. I wanted to write a dream sequence. I used to write them _all the time_ , and I missed the way they could turn a random detail chosen entirely for aesthetics into something deeper and more meaningful as the story shapes itself out and I can go back and edit. Dream sequences legitimize the use of one of my favorite artistic movements: surrealism. So, you know, hopefully I did those things justice, here. 

This fic would not exist without the following people: the brilliantly talented **sophiap** , whose talent with charcoal puts me to shame, and whose [art post](http://sophiap.livejournal.com/238993.html) you must all go look at now if you haven't, yet; the ever lovely and these-days-constant alpha-type reader-slash-cheerleader **butterflykiki** , who lets me ramble ideas at her at the wee hours in the morning when my brain is most active and no one else is awake; the fantastic **wendy** and **thehighwaywoman** who once again managed to make this challenge work like butter (I'm pretty sure they're sorcerers); the gorgeous and very patient **maisfeeka** , who has beta-ed every single one of my big bangs so far and yet still comes back for more (next year, next year I'll get all the "lead"s before I send it to you!); and the absolutely amazing and indispensible **claudiapriscus** , who beta-ed for me for the first time this time around, and without whom this story would pretty much just _not have an ending_. I ran out of gushing adjectives, but you all are absolutely fabulous and indispensible. 

Next year, space opera. I'm telling you.


End file.
